A little bit of pomp at a royal funeral is good for everyone

AMONG my late grandfather's effects, I found a document entitled Ceremonial to be observed at the Funeral of his Late Majesty King George the Sixth of Blessed Memory, February 15th, 1952. It is a fantastically dull read, running to 39 pages of names and titles, detailing precisely who should stand, sit or walk where during the King's two funeral processions, 50 years ago yesterday. (The first was from Westminster Hall, where the King's body had been lying in state; the second from Windsor station to St George's Chapel at the castle, where the funeral was to take place.)

This was the document, drawn up by the Earl Marshal's office, that gave stage directions on that day to all the kings, queens, presidents, high commissioners and other representatives of countries all over the world who had flocked to England for the ceremony.

It told the Grand-Maitresse to the Queen of the Netherlands, for example, that she was to share the fifth carriage from Westminster to Paddington with the Dowager Duchess of Northumberland, the Countess of Scarborough and the Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen of Denmark.

It told the Apothecary to the Household, Nigel Loring Esq, that he was to walk in procession to the station on the left-hand side of the Surgeon-Apothecary to the Household at Sandringham, James Ansell Esq, directly in front of the Gentlemen Ushers, whose names, titles and decorations I will not bore you with.

Dull though the document is, it shows what an extraordinary amount of work went into the planning of the King's funeral, to make sure that the impression of it left in the public's minds would be one of solemn, touching, awe-inspiring majesty.

Princess Margaret's funeral in the same chapel yesterday was a very different affair. Her father's had been a send-off fit for a king, at a moment in history when the public's devotion to the Monarchy was probably at its peak. At her own request, hers was an entirely private ceremony, attended only by her family and friends. No roads were closed for it, and most of the shops stayed open. There was no gun carriage, no cavalry escort for the coffin. The television cameras were kept out of the chapel during the service, so that we could not hear the hymns or follow the service.

The final ceremony of the day, at Slough crematorium, could hardly have been less showy. The princess's body was the sixth to be cremated there yesterday, behind those of Nora Cross, 94, Beryl Whitty, 85, and Ann Head, 94. The cost of the princess's cremation was £280, including a surcharge of £20 because she did not live in the Slough area. Apart from the Lord Chamberlain's representative and the Dean of Windsor, only a handful of her staff were there to witness the end.

I hope that this does not sound a terrible thing to say, but I felt slightly cheated by the arrangements. This did not seem to me to be a funeral fit for the Queen's only sister and the daughter of a king.

I can well understand why Princess Margaret wished things to be as they were. Perhaps she felt that over recent years, the public had lost its appetite for great royal occasions. Perhaps she simply did not wish to make a fuss.

But I cannot help feeling that there was a little more to it than that. Nobody knew better than Princess Margaret, a party girl for most of her life, how people love a bit of glamour and a sense of occasion. Nobody understood better than she the British taste and talent for pageantry. Our transport system and health service may be in a state of collapse but, by God, when it comes to putting on a royal show, there is nobody in the world to beat us.

My suspicion is that Princess Margaret's insistence on a quiet funeral was her last act of defiance against a world that she found increasingly hostile. Here was a woman who is said to have demanded throughout her life that she be accorded the deference due to her rank. How very strange, then, that at the end, she should deliberately deny herself the funeral that was her due. Her due, and ours.

I am not suggesting that the ceremony should have been on anything like the scale of her father's funeral, or that of Diana, Princess of Wales. All I am saying is that I wish there had been a few more horses, a few more uniforms, a military band and perhaps a gun carriage too. At the very least, they might have allowed the television cameras into the chapel.

From what we were told about yesterday's funeral, and the little that we were permitted to see of it, it is clear that it was moving for those who were there. It must have been magnificent in its way, too. With Windsor Castle as a backdrop, a royal banner to drape over the coffin and the Book of Common Prayer as a text, it is hard to go far wrong. But it could have been so much more magnificent. We do these things so very well in Britain, when we are given the chance.

As it was, only a few hundred people lined the streets of Windsor to watch yesterday's comings and goings at the castle. But then there was very little to see. You can be absolutely sure that if Princess Margaret had asked for a proper royal send-off, the public would have flocked to it in their thousands. I reckon she knew that too - and that demanding a quiet funeral was her way of causing a sensation, in death as she so often did in life. God bless her and rest her soul, she was a show-off to the last.